The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel

[_KevinSim]

How did they open the tomb and lift the body without the guards hearing a disturbance?

If the New Testament accounts are accurate, then opening the tomb would have been difficult, but I don't think that means necessarily that opening it would have been noisy, or at least noisy enough to wake up a few soundly sleeping guards. If they had lifted the body of Jesus carefully, they wouldn't have needed to make any noise at all. Remember that if they woke up the guards those guards could have very possibly killed them on the spot, so they would certainly have been motivated to be as quiet as possible.

[_msnobody]

Once again, I'm not really interested in "the Bible and Christian theology," at least at first. What I'm interested in is what the reasons are why I should believe God wants me to be a part of Biblical Christianity. If and when I discover that God does want me to be a part of that faith, then at that point I'd be completely happy to study the Bible and Biblical Christianity.

in my opinion, if done this way, you would be seeking wisdom from created beings versus from the creator like Eve did in the Garden of Eden. God wants us to be holy and this is a task that only he can accomplish in us. Ephesians 1:13 tells us that those who trust in him hear the word of truth, the gospel of their salvation, and believe. It is He that imparts that gift of trust/belief. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

For completeness I should point out that I am in fact a devout Latter-day Saint, and am convinced that God wants me to be in the LDS Church. But for decades now I've been of the opinion that it really can't hurt someone to give serious consideration to the possibility that that someone might be wrong about her/his core beliefs. So, Aristotle (or anybody else for that matter), how can someone like me go about discovering that God wants me to be a part of Biblical Christianity?

Read/hear His word and pray He will reveal truth/Himself to you as you read.

I'm not interested in finding a congregation I like. I want to find the group of people God wants me to associate with.

This sounds vaguely familiar. Maybe Joseph Smith?

[_Panopticon]

One of the main themes in The Case for Christ, that Strobel repeated three or four times in the book, had to do with the transformation of the apostles, from a discouraged and disorganized band of eleven men, into a highly effective missionary force that would start a ball rolling that would eventually spread to all the corners of the world. None of these men ever denied the truthfulness of their central claim, that Jesus had indeed risen from the dead and still lived; most of them went to their deaths affirming the resurrection, whereas Strobel and others have speculated that if they had denied the resurrection they probably could have lived somewhat normal lives.

Why, Strobel asked, would men undergo this transformation, unless it were the case that Jesus had risen from the dead, as they claimed? Why would so many of them risk death as a consequence of their proclamations, if those proclamations were in fact false?

Strobel, and some of his experts, came to the conclusion that the only possible motivation they could have had was if in fact the resurrection had occurred as they declared.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am in fact a devout Latter-day Saint. I firmly believe that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead, and that He lives today. But Strobel argues that belief from the historical record, and I in all honesty don't see how one can do that, can argue for the resurrection from the historical record. Perhaps I am better at playing the devil's advocate in this situation than Lee Strobel was.

First off, the argument from lack of an answer is inherently flawed. So what if I can't think of a better explanation than that Jesus rose from the dead. Does that mean nobody will ever think up a better explanation? Not at all.

But what about revenge as a motivator? Over the ages, perhaps from the very beginning of the human race, revenge has motivated humans to do extraordinary things.

The eleven apostles did flee from Gethsemane, assuming the New Testament record is correct. Of course they did. One cut off a servant's ear, but Jesus put an end to that act of violence in a hurry, and what did they have to do but flee in shock?

But when the shock wore off, when they realized that the Jewish hierarchy had managed to get their master killed, what did they think then? They loved Jesus, possibly more than any group of men ever loved any man that led them. Is it possible that they realized that the best way they could get sweet revenge on that hierarchy was to in fact raise Jesus from the dead, in appearance if not in actuality?

So the apostles go to the tomb. Who knows? Maybe they went with weapons with intent to kill the guards watching it. Instead they find the guards asleep, in accordance with what those guards at a later point claimed they were doing. The apostles lifted the body and buried it somewhere, somewhere that they were reasonably sure nobody would ever find it.

Strobel scoffs at the possibility that the guards may have been telling the truth about being asleep. But think about it for a moment. Strobel asks us to believe that God rose Jesus from the dead, and yet he finds it hard to believe a small group of guards could possibly fall asleep.

I'm not saying it's impossible to raise someone from the dead, but certainly it's extremely difficult. Nobody of that day could do it; heck, once someone's been dead a few hours even now technology doesn't really help us resucitate her/him. On the other hand it is completely possible to fall asleep; in fact in some cases people who are trying very hard to stay awake end up falling asleep, against their will. So why is it so much harder to believe the guards fell asleep than it is to believe that God rose someone from the dead?

With no way for the Jewish hierarchy to prove that Jesus hadn't risen from the dead, since they didn't know where the apostles had buried the body, the apostles were free to preach Jesus risen as much as they wanted. Their revenge was complete; Christianity rose until today it dwarfs the Jewish faith it grew out of. Of course the authorities of the day fought against the apostles and killed many of them. Of course the apostles knew that if they maintained their story some of them would end up dead. But the assertion that people will not die for a lie is simply false; I doubt there has ever been a period in Earth's history where people were not willing to die for revenge's sake, whether that involved dying for a lie or dying for the truth.

We know next to nothing about what the apostles actually did. Taking the Bible's story as truth and then using it to support the truth of the Bible is circular logic.

[_Drifting]

We know next to nothing about what the apostles actually did.

...and know even less about what the current ones do.

[_KevinSim]

But I am unconvinced by complete universalism. Evil is to my understanding dangerous. For the unsaved evil is a serious problem.I normally think evil will eventually terminate people seperated from the kingdom of God. I read the Biblical passages as referring to destruction. It is a long standing tradition to think of that as an unending process, hell. I am uncertain, I suspect Nightlions deep freeze image makes a lot more sense than unendurable pointless pain.

But after thinking of these well established alternatives I am bothered by diminsion I do not understand. How can people become worthless? I cannot imginge Judas as workthless. It is possible I have no clue as to the good or evil in Judas.
Am I able to convict somebody of being uttlerly useless? Is God able to see a people of his createion as uttlerly useless? I am unsure.

Huckelberry, I'm encouraged by your lack of certainty. It demonstrates your lack of attachment to those numerous (perhaps orthodox?) Christians who do claim absolute certainty regarding the eternal fate of Judas Iscariot, that it will be unbearable agony and that it will be forever, never ending.

But uncertainty is definitely no place to stay, if one can find a good way to get away from it. So let's take a look at the matter. Judas clearly was useless to himself. Otherwise Jesus' statement that "it had been good for that man if he had not been born" would not have been true. And how could Judas' life have been useful for anyone else? I just don't see how a person's life that is useless to that person can be useful to anyone else. Therefore why would a good God perpetuate it, if that good God had the power to annihilate it, cause that life to cease to exist?

In fact, I would ask, if we can't be certain that a good God would annihilate Judas, rather than let him suffer whatever agony he's subject to, forever, then what can we be certain that a good God would do? About anything?